quilt, create, inspire

Ahh yes, after scrolling through our last year of posts, I’ll be the first to admit we did a lackluster job of keeping the site updated. But as 2015 rolls in, we’ve resolved to change that.

2014 brought a lot of change to our family, which, not to make too many excuses, was partly to blame for our media absence. From my (Carrie’s) divorce, to the loss of our dear Westie, Rudy, a mystery illness, a very happy engagement (congrats, Lauren!), and two cross country moves, its been a proverbial rollercoaster here.

But as the new year rolls in, things are finally beginning to settle down for us, which means we’re back to business.

So, what have we been up to in the new year? Well, in the last four days, I’ve been busy bag making. For this bag, necessity was the mother of invention. As a radio reporter, I tend to carry a lot of recording gear with me from day to day. So, rather than continuing to search through my purse Mary Poppins style, I decided to make a messenger bag.
Right now, the pattern is still very much under construction. There’s been a lot of trial, and even more error, but as the pieces come together, I’m getting excited about the finished product. If nothing else, the activity gave me a great excuse to rifle through my piles of pretty fabric ☺.

Before we announce our winners I wanted to take a second to tell you all how much fun we had reading through your comments! It was so cool to hear all of your stories about your first quilts and favorite pre cuts!

And now, without any further ado, our winners…

Our Charm Pack will be going home with C Bourque who said:

My first quilt was a King size row-by-row sampler. Nothing like just “jumping in with both feet”. It took me 2 weeks to finish it……and I was hooked!!!

Beth T. will be receiving a copy of our book, Sweet and Simple Sewing. She wrote:

I look forward to seeing Pedal Pushers in my local quilt shop. The soft colors combined with navy really sing.

And the lucky winner of a Pedal Pushers fat quarter bundle is Karen, who wrote:

I love your fabric line. It s bright and cheery.

If your name is on this list, you’ll be getting an email from us very soon to gather shipping information.

Congratulations to our winners and a big thanks to everyone who hopped through the Moda Love blog tour. I hope you had as much fun as we did learning more about each other!

Welcome to our stop on the blog tour! We’re super excited to be a part of this!!! (And winning free stuff is always a fun little incentive for keeping up, right!?!?) So, let’s dive into some questions!

When did you start quilting? Tell us about your first quilt.

The year was 1999. My two good friends (Connie and Vicky) and I decided we would each make a quilt before the new millennium arrived.
Connie, being from Iowa, and already knowing how to quilt, became our teacher and mentor. She took this role very seriously! When Vicky and I showed up for our first lesson, Connie presented us with a goody bag stuffed with a quilting frame, thimble, wax, quilt needles, quilting thread, and safety pins. We decided on the Ohio Star design. Every week we had to complete 3 identical Ohio Star blocks made from our own sewing stashes, and then swap out so that we all had the same blocks in all varieties and themes. And since we never do anything in a small way, this first quilt was queen sized.
When we finished all of our blocks, Connie sent me and Vicky to the fabric store for sashing and backing fabric. (She had a conflict, but she said she trusted us.) Vicky and I calculated and crunched numbers for over an hour. We checked and rechecked our work before making the purchase.
At our next lesson we told Connie that her share was $180.00. Her mouth hit the floor!!! Anyway, we did learn how to layer and hand quilt. I have loved and used that quilt for 14 years now. Memories of the laughter we shared in the process is priceless to me!

This quilt became “Rudy’s Window Quilt”… once it was complete, it was never used by anyone but him. Because of it’s size, it folded up nicely into a moldable cushion that I would put on top of our reck-room couch. It was at the perfect vantage point for Rudy to do what he loved most… guarding our house from mailmen, trash collectors, and other potentially dangerous foes. I really really wish I had a picture of Rudy in action… because it was quite a site.

Oh wait wait wait… I found one in a previous blog post!

On a depressing side note, we lost our best boy this past year. He’s left a really big hole in our lives, that we’re finding difficult to fill. He also made many appearances in our blog over the years, so I’m sure he’ll be missed from here as well.

What is the best part of your design process?

Sketching. I love gridded paper and colored pencils!!! Lauren or Carrie make me a gridded sketch book for each new fabric line that we produce. In it I jot down thoughts, draw fabric ideas, diagram patterns, and write directions. I take it everywhere I go.

A fun side note… these sketch books were so popular among my friends, that we decided to include them in our new book!

Now for the big project!

Here’s another big quilt… this project is featured on all the other blogs, so make sure you check it out. This project really allowed us to get creative! (We missed that “get creative” notation, when the instructions were sent out… and instead, we followed the quilt instructions to a tee.) This project features a layer cake,charm pack or mini charm, but what is your all time favorite moda precut? The directions for this pattern can be found here.

I love jelly roles (2 1/2″ strips from selvage to selvage of each fabric in the line). They can be cut into smaller pieces to become parts of quilt blocks.

But I like to use them in pattern designs where they remain in their long strip state. You may be familiar with Angela Yosten’s Princess And The Pea quilt (found on the moda bake shop site). Each jelly roll strip represents a mattress layer. Soooo cute!!! That inspired me to design our Pencil Box quilt pattern, which is featured on the cover of our new book, Sweet and Simple Sewing with Martingale Publishing.

And then our latest fabric line, Pedal Pushers, features our Wet Paint pattern which also uses the long jelly roll strips.

So for the giveaway…

We’re giving away three prizes! Yay! See below…

Here’s how to enter : Just leave one comment… it can be about whatever you want… If you want to tell us about your first quilt, that might be fun!

And then… If you want to get entered a SECOND time, you can do one of the following things : 1. follow us on Twitter. Here’s the link!2. follow me on Pinterest. Here’s the link!(And then just leave a second column telling us which extra entry you did.

We’ll draw the three winners in one week, so be sure to check back!

The giveaway features our newest and most favorite line Pedal Pushers! Hope you guys enjoy!
… And because I wasn’t super excited with the coloring in that last photo… here’s a better shot of the colors. They’re super nice! Kind of sherberty!

“How great that you are on the cover! A quilt a month would be awesome!”

If you’re a member of the Jung family, it pretty much goes without saying that one of your Christmas gifts from Mom (Jessi) each year will be a calendar.

While, at first, this may seem like a lame gift idea, it’s actually one of the most useful items we receive all year. You see, the calendars Lauren and I get are pre marked with important dates, anniversaries, and birthdays. Jessi even takes it one step further and notes the very last date we can put a card in the mail without being late. The end result of her effort is a set of friends and family who are impressed with our thoughtfulness and timely gift/card arrivals.

With calendars playing such a significant role in our facade of organization, you can imagine that we were all pretty excited to hear that a Lauren + Jessi Jung Designs quilt was going to be featured in two of Martingale’s quilt calendars next year.
You can find us in That Patchwork Place’s Quilt Calendar 2015 and A Year of Quilts
Ahh yes, gone are the days where we have to see pictures of other people’s quilts on our kitchen wall-calendars. For the months of May and June, at least, we can gaze at our very own Gypsy Moth and Big Bang quilts while being reminded that Father’s Day is approaching and we have yet to send our cards.

But not only are we IN these calendars, we’re on the cover of one, too!

This is big news for us, and we couldn’t be happier.

These calendars have just shipped to stores, but we’ll also be giving a copy away to two lucky readers next week. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post. We’ll be announcing the winners on Friday, August 1st.

More information about A Year of Quilts and Martingale’s other crafty 2015 calendars can be found on their StitchThis blog.

Happy quilting, everyone! We’ll be back up and running in the blogosphere very soon!

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Lauren Jung

I'm the designer in the group... And I write about half of the blog posts here. I'm also co-founder of a startup called Shelf (launching soon).

Carrie Jung

Carrie heads up our PR department. She's also one of the main contributors to a book that we're publishing. And she takes care of LOTS of other stuff, because she's awesome! And we all think she should quit her day job to pursue the wonderful world of pattern making. (Kidding Carrie, chill.)